The Awesomest Jelly Bean Dispenser Ever

Introduction: The Awesomest Jelly Bean Dispenser Ever

Here is an idea that has you both building and enjoying a delicious snack for the afternoon! Yep, thats right, a JELLY BEAN DISPENSER! (also works for M&Ms.) Sorry about the sideways pictures. I cant really figure out how to fix that. oops! :)

Step 2: Cut and Drill

Cut all your wood down to size, and then mark the two 4x4'' top and bottom. find the middle of the top block and drill a hole in it with the 3/4'' or 15/16'' drill bit. Set both pieces aside. take the thin 31/2''x31/2'' piece, and the long piece of wood of the same width. (1'') Put the top 4x4'' piece and place it atop the thin 31/2''x31/2''. Using a pencil, put a dot into the 31/2'' piece through the hole, so you know where to place your long piece. center the long piece of wood over the dot, and mark where it is with a pencil. make the lines you just made about 1/16'' bigger, and cut out on any saw, just make sure it is even. After this, carefully glue and nail down the wood you cut onto the thicker 31/2x31/2'' piece.

Step 3: More Cutting, Drilling, and Gluing!

Take the long piece of wood, and make a line 1/2'' down. find the middle of this new, smaller section, and with the 1/4'' bit, drill a hole in the center. Do not drill through the wood, but go far down. About 3'' down from the hole you just made, mark a 11/4'' space. turning it on its side, mark a line that is 1/6'' above the bottom. from there, make 2 30 degree angles that go down to just a bit more than the length of a regular m&m or jelly belly jelly bean.
Cut out this space. (also look at the pictures below) Take the 1/2'' drill bit, and drill a small circle into the slot you just made. this will make it so the jelly bean will not fall out of the slot as easily.

Step 4: Putting It All Together

take the 31/2'' blocks that you put together, and center, glue, and nail the top and bottom 4x4'' pieces to it. Make sure the hole in the top piece is directly above the opening in the pieces of wood. (smaller 31/2'' that were cut earlier) once this is done, take the long piece of wood and place it inside the opening. it should fit snuggly, but slide easily. If it does not, sand or cut out more from the sides. once you do this, get the 1/4'' dowel, and put it in the small hole in the mechanism. (long piece of wood) mark the dowel so just a small bit goes above the top 4x4'' piece. cut and glue inside the hole. Now, take the thin scrap wood and cut a piece that is about 1/2'' bigger than the back of the mechanism. making sure the wood is inside the opening, glue to the back, and add a small nail if you wish. You should now have a working dispenser, with out the jar on top.

Step 5: The Jar

Take the lid to your jar, make sure it has a hole in it bigger than the hole in the top piece of the wood, and carefully drill about six holes in it that are the size of your very small nails. center the lid on the top of the dispenser, and using a hammer and punch, carefully nail it in place. put on the jar, and voila, you have an almost finished jelly bean dispenser!

Step 6: The Finishing Touches

Erase any pencil marks, add a coat of varnish, paint, or polyurethane, and you have a finished jelly bean dispenser! For a cooler design, you could try using an old lightbulb for the jar, or even a tree stump instead of the wood! I hope you enjoyed my instructable! Even if it is a bit confusing! (this is my 2nd instructable)

I made this special one out of big walnut and ash planks. It was quite a work to cut and plane everything, but it was worth it. This special one goes to my special one as her birthday gift. Hope she'll love it :D

This project is very fun and pretty easy. It takes a few hours but the product works great! I tried a different style for the sliding piece of wood. I cut an entire hole in the wood so that you could easily put your hand underneath it and let the jelly beans fall into your hand.

Is it determined how long the project takes? I have an hour or so for my engineering class and we get to build whatever we want, so I am going to work on this. And if you have anything else you made out of wood, could you make sure I can see them, because if it doesn't take long, then I need to build another thing, so Thanks!

Really easy to make, but with the humidity that's kicked in here this summer, jelly beans just aren't playing nice. However, any kind of hard candy has worked well. I bored a larger hole (after determining jelly beans didn't work for me) and made *two* cutouts into the slider: a shallow one for small candies, and a deeper one on the opposite side for peanut M&Ms.

A few key changes/notes for my slider vs. the one in this tutorial...

1. The 30-degree cut into the slider was too steep to prevent jams. I made a longer, shallower cut...maybe ~60 degrees...that more easily guided extra pieces back up into the bore hole. (My second cut-out for peanut M&Ms was fine to leave at 90 degrees.)

2. I didn't make the front 30-degree cut. After testing, it just didn't seem necessary.

3. While I wouldn't necessarily recommend this for dispensers used by kids, I didn't add a back stop. I wanted to be able to pull the slider out all the way in case of a particularly bad jam, which, in the case of soft candies, can leave a gummy residue that keeps the slider from sliding easily from then on. Leaving off the stop means I can clean the slider when needed.

Other small touches you can see in the attached photo: I routed a curved edge into the two 4" pieces, and I hot-stamped a logo (check out this tutorial) on the front right.

Other recommendations...

Use a miter saw instead of a table saw if you have one. Not only is it quicker, you can use it to trim the edge where the 1x2's sit atop the 2x4's and make them perfectly flush.

The dowel is so tight you really don't need glue. You never know if, over time, it will crack or get broken, and you'll want to be able to replace it if needed.

Rub a white candle on the slider to get a smoother slide.

Line up your wood grains.

If you do make a second cut-out for larger candies, remember to add a dowel to the other side of the slider. If you check out my photo, you'll see I drilled all the way through the slider; I trimmed about 1/3 off two dowels and placed one on each side of the hole.

Wow! I love your recomendations! It turned out great. This was a very early project of mine, so I now know that the miter saw would have been a better choice (oops!) Also, The wood grain! ah! I knew something wasn't right!

pretty cool! my 3 y/o daughter had no idea what i was reading but saw the jelly beans and told me to make one. as stated in another comment, be careful on the spacing of numbers when giving measurements, 3 1/2 vs. 31/2. but still a great i'ble!